Poets Moira Linehan and Mary Pinard will be featured readers in Old Frog Pond Farm & Studio’s next reading in our 2019 winter poetry series. Come in out of the snow on Sunday, March 10, at 3 p.m. to hear Moira Linehan and Mary Pinard present their poetry of nature and community. Please stay to enjoy refreshments and conversation.

Hawk and Pond and Branch

After “Wind and Water and Stone” —Octavio Paz

by Moira Linehan

The hawk sits enthroned on the branch. The pond lies prostrate below.

The branch curves the way the ragged edge of the pond curves.

Hawk and pond and branch.

The frozen pond makes nothing easy for the hawk. The branch extends only so far

over the pond. The hawk cannot be at home on that branch.

Pond and branch and hawk.

The branch is content to hold itself out. The pond will not give way

to open water for weeks. The hawk cannot let waiting be its own reward.

Branch and pond and hawk.

Whatever happens among these three happens at an edge: sway and flash

and shifting shadows. Or the lack thereof. Hawk and pond and branch.

Published in South Carolina Review, Spring 2013.

Moira Linehan is the author of two collections of poetry, both published by Southern Illinois University Press: If No Moon and Incarnate Grace. If No Moon was selected by Dorianne Laux as the winner of the 2006 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry open competition. Both books were named Honor Books in Poetry in the Massachusetts Book Awards. New work of hers recently appeared, or is forthcoming, in AGNI, Boston College Magazine, Calyx, Crab Creek Review, Crab Orchard Review, The Georgia Review, Innisfree Poetry Journal, Notre Dame Review and Salamander.

Blossom Running With a Rake

by Mary Pinard

Mutt—shepherd, greyhound, visla—in a rush, finding his footing

despite slushy back stairs, w h o a, slick, quick-slip, almost sledding

on haunches, but upright again, nose down, what? Hard, long,

snake? Spear? Snuffle off snow, sniffing to its other end—curved

tines, a set of teeth, at least a rib cage? Split second, mouth, jaw-clamped,

now it’s a jousting lance, whip-bang-bing off the wrought iron

fence leading yard-wise, pillowy snow-patches, unmarked till now:

a gamboling deer-leaping rush of glee, loosening drift and torquing

up mulch chunks, chips of ice—rake gripped tightly, unearthing spring.

Mary Pinard teaches in the Arts & Humanities Division at Babson College. Her poems have appeared in a variety of literary journals, and she has published critical essays on poets, including Lorine Niedecker and Alice Oswald. Portal, her collection of poems, was published by Salmon Press. Her work as a poet has also been featured in collaborative performances and exhibits with Boston-area musicians, painters, and sculptors. She was born and raised in Seattle. For more information, please visit www.marypinard.com.